Vegan Gingerbread Cupcakes with Pineapple Frosting

24 November 2016

Stir up Sunday has passed but it's not to late to do some festive baking. I wanted to make something Graham could enjoy this year, so it had to be egg and dairy free. I decided on gingerbread as that says Christmas to me with all the warming spices and deep flavours. I could have made a gingerbread loaf, but cupcakes just seemed so much more appealing.

They had to have frosting and as I'd just taken delivery of a box of Emily Fruit Crisps, I was eyeing up the pineapple and thinking they would go well with gingerbread.

The crisps aren't traditional crisps but pieces of fruit dried in a vacuum. There are no added preservatives, additives or sugar, just fruit. Just in case you thought I was adding oil laden crisps to my cupcakes.

I was glad there were a few bags of pineapple, as once I had started nibbling ..............

This was my trial recipe but they came out well. I sat with some paper and wrote down a few vegan and standard cupcake recipes, had a look at my gingerbread recipe and worked out a recipe that I thought would work. I was fully prepared to have to tweak it a few times, but they were pretty good first try. A fact reinforced when the boys came home and started eating them with big smiles on their faces.

The cupcakes, didn't have the rise of a standard cupcake, but I didn't expect that of gingerbread anyway.

For the frosting, I whizzed up a couple of bags of pineapple crisps in my Froothie blender, which turned it into a powder, which I added to icing sugar, lemon juice and dairy free spread. I piped the frosting on and finished off the cupcakes with a pineapple crisp. The perfect finishing touch.

The pineapple flavour in the frosting was subtle, if you want a stronger flavour puree some pineapple and add that to the frosting.

1. Heat the oven to 180c/160c fan/350f/gas mark 4.2. Spray a muffin tray with baking release spray or lightly oil.3. Sieve the flour in a large bowl with ginger, mixed spice and salt.4. In another bowl, whisk together the oil, syrup, treacle, vinegar and cream.5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold in. Don't over mix and don't worry about a few lumps.6. Bake for 20 minutes until springy to the touch.7. While they are cooling make the frosting. Whisk (by hand or electric whisk) the butter, pineapple powder, lemon juice and icing sugar until light and fluffy.8. Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes and top with a fruit crisp.9. Enjoy!

12 comments

These sound lovely - I tried a vegan gingerbread men recipe on the weekend and need to go back to the drawing board as they were sweeter than my usual ones. I love the sound of the golden syrup and treacle in these. Could you sprinkle some pineapple powder over the icing to up the pineapple flavour?

oooh I love warming gingerbread... especially in cute cupcake format! What a fab idea to use the pineapple crisps - such a lush flavour combo. I'm totally trying this out next week for the school festive bake sale!

I love reading comments, so thank you for taking the time to leave one. Unfortunately, I'm bombarded with spam, so I've turned on comment moderation. I'll publish your comments as soon as I can and respond to them. Don't panic, they will disappear when you hit publish. Jac x